“Orders confirmed,” Computer said.
I’d drawn up so close to Emma that I could smell her perfume.
It filled my lungs and I could see only her.
She didn’t know where to look—other than not at me—and seemed a little put out.
I placed my hands on her bare arms and immediately felt the prickle of goosebumps on her skin.
I didn’t say a word.
I didn’t need to.
She looked up into my face and the expression of hurt in her eyes faded.
It returned a moment later, ebbing and flowing like a seashore on the coast of a cold and distant planet.
No sound emitted from our ship but orange-red light flashed across our faces as the torpedoes were dispatched and drifted across the open space and slammed into mines between us and the enemy ship, setting off yellow starbursts.
The closest mines made our ship shudder.
And still, I didn’t take my eyes from hers.
If I was going to die, I wanted those blue-green orbs to be the last thing I saw.
I breathed her in and absorbed her, letting her fill me up from the inside.
The external shocks eased and our ship drifted, still alive and well.
Further explosions tore at the ship’s outer hull, causing it to scream in defiance.
Emma stumbled and I scooped her up in my arms.
“Are you okay?” I said.
She nodded, her eyes wide and bulbous with shock.
“Mines successfully detonated,” Computer said. “But the enemy ship wasn’t damaged. Their shields are too strong.”
“Then eject the shuttlecraft and get us out of here,” I commanded.
Computer carried out my wishes and our ship turned sharply and fired a few more charges at the surrounding mines.
I kept an eye out for the enemy ship through the window and watched—and prayed—that it wouldn’t notice what we were doing until we had a big enough head start.
The explosions continued around us and rattled our ship and burned with the ferocity of a thousand suns as we beat a hasty retreat and headed into the vast expanse and darkness of space beyond.
The Severing was Emma’s one other option, the one other way for her to rid herself of the bond binding her to Iav.
If mating with me was out of the question, it was the one way to set her free so she could live the kind of life she wished, without my Shadow following her every step of the way.
Without Iav.
And without me.
Emma
We drifted through space for a while, letting the minefield corridor direct us as the explosions snapped at our heels.
Vai clutched my hands in his as we watched the scene play out through the broad open window.
Iav’s ship continued to open fire, blowing up the mines and laying waste to the surrounding area.
I daren’t breathe a sigh of relief in case it jinxed us.
Iav’s ship shrank smaller and smaller, and so did the bright bursts of light from the exploding mines.
They could have been distant lightbulbs at the bottom of a deep and unforgiving mineshaft.
Once we drifted far enough away, I relaced my grip on Vai’s hands and realized as I did so that the entire time I had been looking out the window, he had been looking down at me, watching as if I was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen.
I glowed red, blood rushing to my cheeks.
His interest in me was obvious and intense.
I felt that now-familiar rise emanating from deep inside me, that desire and thirst for him to take me right then and there, and for me to do the same.
But I didn’t let it breathe.
I couldn’t.
Not after him lying to me about how he had found me.
He was my fated mate as much as Iav was.
And the first one to stick me claimed me.
Well, I wasn’t about to be sticked by someone I hardly knew—not when I had another option in the form of the Severing to free me from this shitshow once and for all.
By now, the spot that was meant to be our destruction had shrunk to the size of a pinhead.
I could block out the entire scene with the tip of my thumb.
I wished my entire memory of this place could be wiped out so easily.
“How long will it take to reach the Surgery?” I said.
“About five hours,” Vai said absently.
I nodded and couldn’t meet his eyes, the same way he couldn’t meet mine.
I wondered why I had to be so petty and small-minded when it came to people telling me things.
It had always bothered me.
I was their ultimate goal, their prize for claiming me.
I had a right to know the truth about the whole thing, didn’t I?
“I’ll… go to my room,” I said. “Let me know when we’re almost there.”
“I will,” Vai said.
I felt his eyes on my ass as I approached the elevator.
Tell him to come with you, an internal voice said. Tell him you want him to be with you. You know it’s the truth.
It might be the truth but it still didn’t mean I wanted to spread my legs every time a guy turned me on.
I glanced over my shoulder as I drew up to the elevator, every sinew in my body telling me to make the same offer that internal voice had.
Do it. Do it. Do it.
But I wouldn’t do it.
No matter how much I wanted to, no matter how much I thought I should.
I stepped into the elevator.
“My room, please,” I said.
As the doors hissed shut, I figured I could cast one more glance at Vai without him noticing.
I peered up through my eyelashes and found he hadn’t turned away.
He hadn’t moved an inch and stared openly back at me.
He was hot, carved from marble, a model of how perfect God’s design could be.
“We’re there,” Vai’s voice said over the speaker.
It took less than the five hours he had said it would.
I spent the entire time sitting on the edge of my bed running through the past few hours, asking myself to
